Alice and Bob’s Debate: Art vs. Data

Alice and Bob are a couple of cinema directors in the region of California, in Hollywood. They have won every kind of award across the globe, by the power of them taking the ADA course and their movie direction passion! However, they still have one challenge, and it is not a small one: setting up a movie that will win an Oscar.

Bob thinks that they mastered the art of movie direction and that they should not rely on any data whatsoever, while Alice wants a more thorough analysis, stating that, nowadays, we could not skip data as it is one of the revolutions of our world, to have a further idea of how to get an Oscar.

Alice: "Bob, we’ve been phenomenal so far, but the Oscars? That’s a different beast. We need to strategize, and data analysis is the way forward."

Bob: "Alice, come on. We’re directors, not statisticians. We’ve mastered this craft with instinct, storytelling, and vision. Why complicate it with numbers?"

Alice: "Because numbers don’t lie, Bob. They tell us what resonates with the audience, what themes are trending, and what the Academy historically loves. Think about it. Every Oscar winner has a certain... formula."

Bob: "A formula? Really? You think we can boil down art to some algorithm? Art is passion, emotion, and risks, Alice. You can’t program that."

Alice: "No, but you can guide it. Look, take last year's Best Picture. The themes of Oppenheimer? Ethical and political struggles. The tone? Bittersweet but uplifting. The cast? Accurate. That wasn’t a coincidence, Bob."

Bob: "So what, you want me to pitch some cookie-cutter, Academy-friendly plot? That’s not us. That’s not me. We’re artists, not trend-chasers."

Alice: "Not trend-chasers, but trend-aware. You have to adapt. The industry is evolving, and data is part of the revolution. It’s not about copying; it’s about understanding the playing field. Then we innovate within it."

Bob: "Alright, Madame Analyst, what would this data-driven Oscar bait look like? Enlighten me."

They clink glasses, their collaboration set on a delicate balance of artistry and strategy.

The Problematic

Our Question

To help Alice convince Bob, we have been given the challenging task of identifying the factors that contribute to winning an Oscar—whether for an artist or a movie. Fortunately, Alice has provided us with some key starting points for our analysis, particularly the CMU dataset, which includes information on tropes, nationalities, summaries, and more.

Why It Matters

This analysis sheds light on trends that matter to filmmakers, fans, and anyone curious about the art of cinema.

Meet the Team

Yassine Mustapha Wahidy

The Goat

Amine Bengelloun

The Goat

William Jallot

The Goat

Thierry Sokhn

The Goat

Khalil Ouazzani Chahdi

The Goat

Dataset Presentation

About the Dataset

This dataset was curated from sources like IMDb and awards databases. It includes information on movies, actors, genres, budgets, and revenues.

Movies: Titles, genres, release years, budgets, box office revenues, and awards.
Actors: Names, roles, and collaborations.

Data Exploration

Initial graphs help us understand the data distribution and potential patterns.

Graph 1 Title

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Graph 2 Title

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Movie Analysis